Great new book, "The American Catholic Almanac"

   My wife gave me a great book for Christmas, "The American Catholic Almanac".  It has one Catholic story for each day of
the year with the date being important to the story.  Here is
a description of the book:

  Brian Burch and Emily Stimpson have put together a page-a-day history of 365 inspiring stories celebrating the historic contributions of American men and women who have been shaped by their Catholic faith.

It is a great little book and I love reading about the Catholic heroes that are in the book,  most of them not known to most
American Catholics.  In fact, for the January 3rd entry,  the story is about Bishop John Hughes, who died on January 3rd, 1864.  He was very influential in fighting for the Catholic faith in America especially for the Irish immigrants (he was one himself being born in Ireland and coming to America when he was 20).  Funny story of his life is that he tried to be a seminarian when he came but was refused and so he instead became a gardener for St. Elizabeth Seton and her seminary there in Maryland.  Eventually, he was allowed to go to the seminary and became a priest and eventually a bishop. 

Another great story is he bought land as a bishop in uptown Manhattan where there was not much around and decided to build a huge cathedral there. People thought he was crazy to build it so far away but now today it is right in the middle of Manhattan, St. Patrick's Cathedral. 

The book has a lot of stories like this, it also has stories of catholic villians (called rogues by the book) that have shaped American Catholicism for bad and for good (people stood up against some of them).  These stories are interesting but I prefer the stories about the Catholic heroes like Bishop Hughes.